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Excellent blog on valuable July reads by Jane Hart led me to this blog post by Thomas Handcock and Warren Howlett, July 29, 2014, CEB Blogs, a very good discussion of building productive learning cultures. They recommend three steps: 1. Right size opportunities (which on the surface sounds fine but then they say that the "best organizations limit learning opportunities to those that are most relevant to employees and impactful for the organization but then rely on their (HR's) determination of learning needs (how do employees express their learning needs in this scenario? how does it support ownership and spontaneity beyond annual surveys? Of course they are talking about BIG corporations.) and "learning maturity" which sounds condescending to me) 2. Advance the organization's learning capability (most of this rings truer to me than #1 but it may be that my perception of what they say in #1 is slanted and hypersensitive). Here they talk about "teaching employees how to learn." "this lack of learning aptitude is primarily a capability issue, not a matter of employee motivation." 3. Foster shared ownership of the learning environment (which overcomes much of my objection to what they say in #1)

From the State of Consumers and Technology report from Forrester. Released 12/19/12. Found that those who go online at least daily was 78% of US adults in 2011, and it jumped to 84% in 2012 due to the growing use of smartphones and tablets. At least 50% of US adults owns a smartphone, and 19% own a tablet.

Blog post by Harold Jarche, Life in Perpetual Beta blog, March 24, 2013. Asserts that enterprise social tools can go only so far to help people share their knowledge because people wish to retain ownership and use as they see fit it. Excerpt: "People will freely share their knowledge if they remain in control of it. Knowledge is a very personal thing. Most workers do not care about organizational knowledge bases. They care about what they need to get work done. However, if we are going to build organizational knowledge from individual knowledge-sharing, we have to connect the two."

Forbes, 10/22/13, by Jacquelyn Smith "Entrepreneurial spirit is a mindset. It's an attitude and approach to thinking that actively seeks out change, rather than waiting to adapt to change. It's a mindset that embraces critical questioning, innovation, service and continuous improvement. "It's about seeing the big picture and thinking like an owner," says Michael Kerr, an international business speaker, author and president of Humor at Work. "It's being agile, never resting on your laurels, shaking off the cloak of complacency and seeking out new opportunities. It's about taking ownership and pride in your organization." Sara Sutton Fell, CEO and founder of FlexJobs, says: "To me, an entrepreneurial spirit is a way of approaching situations where you feel empowered, motivated, and capable of taking things into your own hands. Companies that nurture an entrepreneurial spirit within their organization encourage their employees to not only see problems, solutions and opportunities, but to come up with ideas to do something about them." Entrepreneurial companies tend to have a more innovative approach to thinking about their products or services, new directions to take the company in, or new ways of doing old tasks, she adds. "Entrepreneurial spirit helps companies grow and evolve rather than become stagnant and stale." According to Jay Canchola, an independent human resources consultant, entrepreneurial spirit is also associated with taking calculated risks, and sometimes failing. "

Very scary video (4 minutes) by Mark Cuban on how privacy is violated because digital history is retained forever. Inc. How ownership shifts from author to recipient who may misuse it in any # of ways. Of course, Cuban is developing erasure apps that delete texts after a certain amount of time. Talks about tweets in particular. Unfollowing people who could be sending wrong message.

Great infographic on the use of smartphones by age as well as by type of phone (iPhone, Android, Microsoft, RIM). Highest smartphone penetration rate is 62% in age group 25 - 34.

More info and stats on mobile/smartphone users.

Very good article by Monica Potts, July-August 2015, Washington Monthly, on how the sharing (really Post-job economy) economy encourages downward mobility among millennials

article by Joyce E. A. Russell, 10/28/2012, Capital Business, Wash Post on competitors collaborating.